MIPI® I3CSM Offers
a Substantial Leap in Performance and Power Efficiency Compared to
Existing Options

PISCATAWAY, N.J. & SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — November 5, 2014 —
MIPI®
Alliance, an international organization that develops interface
specifications for mobile and mobile-influenced industries, today
introduced a sensor interface specification for mobile,
mobile-influenced and embedded-systems applications. The new
specification, named MIPI I3C�nbsp; (or MIPI i3c�nbsp;), was developed with the
participation of vendors from across the sensor and mobile ecosystems.
The name MIPI SenseWire�nbsp; will be used to describe the application of
I3C�nbsp; in mobile devices and the use of the I3C interface for mobile
devices connecting to a set of sensors, directly or indirectly. MIPI
Alliance issued the announcement in conjunction with MEMS Executive
Congress, which is taking place this week in Scottsdale, Arizona.

“The steadily increasing use of sensors in wireless devices is driving
innovation of new and exciting applications for all types of products,
yet incorporating numerous sensors in end-user devices is a serious pain
point,” said Joel Huloux, chairman of the board of MIPI Alliance.
“SenseWire brings a long-awaited, standardized solution to these
difficult problems.”

The proliferation of sensors has created significant design challenges
to product designers. The challenges are particularly demanding in the
handset market, where smartphones often require as many as 10 sensors
and more than 20 signals. Yet as these requirements continue to grow,
phone architectures can’t scale to deliver the design, cost and
performance efficiencies manufacturers need to add more sensors to their
products. Further, integration requirements can vary for each sensor,
and the digital interfaces available to the market, including I2C and
SPI, are numerous. Interface fragmentation increases product development
and integration costs. Also, currently available interfaces do not use
power efficiently for communication with sensors, and this can limit
their potential uses and scalability.

To address these challenges and ensure that the new specification
addresses the needs of the broadest possible sensor ecosystem, MIPI
Alliance collaborated with MEMS Industry Group (MIG) to survey both
groups’ members to assess sensor interface needs and identify technology
gaps that existing sensor standards can’t provide. The survey findings
helped guide the work of the MIPI Alliance Sensor Working Group, which
has led development of the new specification. Companies participating in
the MIPI Alliance Sensor Working Group include AMD, Audience, Broadcom,
Cadence, Intel Corporation, InvenSense, Lattice Semiconductor, MediaTek,
Mentor Graphics, NVIDIA, NXP, STMicroelectronics, Synopsys, Qualcomm
Incorporated, QuickLogic, VLSI Plus, Ltd., ZMDI, and others.

“The development of the MIPI I3C specification has been a truly communal
development process, with stakeholders from across the industry
participating collaboratively in this work,” said Ken Foust, chair of
the MIPI Alliance Sensor Working Group. “We set out to develop an
interface that is evolutionary, not revolutionary, and that advances I2C
and SPI. This new specification will become a superset of both. We fully
expect that the interface will have broad market adoption in the mobile
ecosystem and beyond.”

In general, SenseWire incorporates and unifies key attributes of I2C and
SPI while improving the capabilities and performance of each approach
with a comprehensive, scalable interface and architecture. The
specification also anticipates sensor interface architectures that
mobile, mobile-influenced, and embedded-systems industries will need in
the future. The specification should make it easier for system designers
to connect and manage sensors in a device, improve time to market for
these implementations and enable a greater number of sensors to operate
in a device while minimizing power consumption and reducing component
and implementation costs. It will also help manufacturers combine
multiple sensors from different vendors to enable new features while
supporting longer battery life.

The technical features of the MIPI I3C specification include a two-pin
interface that is backward compatible with the I2C standard and provides
data throughput capabilities comparable to SPI. The technical attributes
explain the name for the specification, MIPI I3C, which is derived from
its compatibility with I2C.

The new technology can facilitate in-band interrupts within the 2-wire
interface, which drastically reduces device pin count and signal paths,
and facilitates incorporation of more sensors in a device. On standard
CMOS I/O, it supports a minimum data rate of 10 Mbps with options for
higher performance high-data-rate (HDR) modes, offering a substantial
leap in performance and power efficiency compared to existing options.
It also offers multimaster support, dynamic addressing, command-code
compatibility and a uniform approach for advanced power management
features, such as sleep mode.

“MIG is deeply committed to advancing industry specifications that will
ease development of MEMS/sensors-based applications. We were able to
support that goal by collaborating with MIPI Alliance members in
realizing this important new specification,” said Karen Lightman,
executive director of MEMS Industry Group. “The MIPI I3C specification
will have a lasting impact. It addresses the need for a standardized
interface that ensures low-power operation in microcontrollers — across
application, industry and market. Such broad applicability should
produce direct benefits to wirelessly connected wearables, toy and
gaming devices, healthcare products, and industrial equipment —
applications that are the bedrock of the Internet of Things.”